Thursday, October 02, 2014

Top Four Tips for Flawless, Photoshop-Free SL Snapshots

Show me a Second Life user who doesn't want to take Photoshop-free snapshots as gorgeous as SL artist Loverdag's and I'll show you someone who's lying through their prim teeth. But getting that level of gorgeousness without the help of post-processing tools is rarely as easy or effortless as it looks, and there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account.

If you want to up your Photoshop-free virtual photography game, here are four tips you'll want to keep in mind:

Take Advantage of HUDs

There are loads of photographic HUDs in SL, all with different strengths and weaknesses. The Chouchou cinematic HUD is a popular choice for its clean and simple letterboxing, but there are plenty of others that will add things like vignettes, noise, dust and scratches and even more artistic flourishes to your snapshots without the need for any third-party software. Do a little digging on the Marketplace and see what turns up.

Experiment With the Environment

Sky and water presets are all well and good when you're in a hurry, but if you're willing to take some time to fiddle with them you can get some amazing results. Just start clicking and dragging and don't worry about messing up -- you can always go back to those tried and true presets if you don't like the results.

Learn About Composition Techniques

This is a good thing to do whether or not you plan to use Photoshop, GIMP, or even Paint to touch up your snapshots. Sometimes centering your subject will be the best choice and sometimes it won't, and even when it is you can still make use of things like the rule of thirds as Loverdag did in the dragon screenshot shown above. These techniques make your images stronger and more pleasing to the eye, so don't be afraid to do your research.

When Avatars Are Involved, Be Aware of Everything

As far as I'm concerned, this is the big one: If you're steering clear of post-processing, then the Second Life avatar may be your worst enemy. You'll need to be extra-aware of every little detail to avoid pic-ruining visual hitches, which is probably why some of the best vanilla Second Life screenshots are of landscapes and inanimate objects. If you're dead set on including avatars, however, there are a few specific areas you'll want to watch. Make sure that whatever pose they're in isn't causing any clipping or unintended deformation of their body/clothing/accessories. If it is, adjust the offending pieces if possible or try out a different pose or camera angle. Also, pay attention to the way the light interacts with your avatar's face and body. The vanilla avatar in particular is known for having patches of unnatural-looking geometry, particularly around the collar bone, mouth, butt and so on, and lighting can hide or highlight these areas.

Those are my tips, but as always feel free to share your own in the comments below.

Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Personally I am an agnostic and think each approach has it's uses.I agree that environmental can be a very powerful way of enhancing a stock S.L. Pic
However, while "photoshop free" is useful, as it makes you aware of the basics and not get lazy by attempting to "fix it in post", I will be a pedant and say that photographic HUD's and the like are a form of post processing and therefore a use of "third-party software".